Takshasila Guidance to UPSC Aspirants- Environment Vs Development- IAS- J.P Sir & IPS Bagchi Sir

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:01]Sir uh with respect to questions like uh to take a stand between environmentalism and development uh for example if there is a tribal area or a forest area where there are huge reserves of boxite available and uh exploiting uh those resources can lead to development of some areas whereas if we go by that path we will be causing displacement of lot of tribals and also causing lot of damage to environment. So in such scenarios what was the better approach to take?

[00:00:31]>> I am biased here on this issue. I am not impartial.

[00:00:37]When a country is desperately poor while environmental concerns should be important in the back of our mind economic growth is more important but growth can be managed with least damaged environment. By definition modernity and environment don't go together including agriculture.

[00:00:56]Agriculture itself is modernity.

[00:00:58]Agriculture itself has damaged environment. Are we therefore going to say no agriculture?

[00:01:04]Once we have 7.8 billion population on planet earth, we don't have the luxury like the idiot in Sri Lanka whatever uh what's his name? Raj whatever rajaksha he is gaw rajaka all rajapakas anyway that's you have seen how de devastating it is. So environment is important particularly as we grow older. My generation we understand for your generation environment is very critical but you have to have very balanced approach to environment technology and modernity and growth in a responsible way of the ancest environment not opposing economic growth and technology.

[00:01:45]For instance truly today there are fantastic answers available to global warming and you're all most of you from engineering background from technology.

[00:01:54]Not saying that no power, no electricity, not ludism.

[00:02:00]You know ludism.

[00:02:02]>> Ludites. Everybody knows about that.

[00:02:07]>> Raise hands those who don't haven't heard Ludites and Ludism.

[00:02:13]a fellow called Kevin Lur in the wake of industrial revolution in Britain he gathered a group of young fellows and they went about destroying the machines because the machine age destroyed the old occupations every technological transformation destroys some old technologies it's inevitable hand looms we're still facing Mahatma Gandhi built lot of his philosophy and his work around hand looms for instance but no matter what you and say hand looms are always in distress because new technology is overtaking old technologies and therefore rejecting new technologies is a very silly option.

[00:02:54]It's a very quaint uh uh whimsical option. It doesn't have any serious relevance. How do you integrate? How do you see that the losers they are integrated in the new economy?

[00:03:06]And if there's a market possible for the old things, how do you improve the market?

[00:03:12]You can't simply reject the new. None of us is wearing anything the old, right?

[00:03:16]And we're using the new technology. I'm not saying look because somebody's losing employment, I'll use the old technology. No. Book publishing has gone down thanks to this. I remember I used to do enormous amount of research and I was writing columns. I was writing three four columns a week more than professional writers. And I always took pride that there should not be a mistake when I said something. It was extremely hard work because I was traveling almost 20 days, 25 days a month plus doing a 100 other things. Today this makes it so easy and certainly it has taken away many occupations of the past. So uh land transfer regulations, tribal, non-tribal, scheduled areas, all these are issues but economic growth in a responsible way is possible in today's age. If there is a mineral which is vital whatever be the area and if there's an economic value which is greater than the current value that is derived from that land then we have no choice. Similarly use of existing resources water. I myself a great friend of the farmers. I'm widely known in the country and particularly in this part of the country as friend of the farmers but I don't believe that when you build a dam or have water impounded the first priority is agriculture alone.

[00:04:34]agriculture where necessary but if there's a greater economic use for the same uh quantity of water greater value generated greater employment created then that has to have first priority drinking water must be the highest priority. So you must not have romantic notions but it does not mean that there are going to be necessarily losers. And now we have the legal framework we have the technical tech technological uh framework to ensure that that reconciliation is possible but don't take an extreme position of many of the jolawalas who don't want economic growth and incomes and ending poverty because they have some esoteric notions about about mother earth and environment.

[00:05:15]So I am as I said I'm biased. I'm taking a strong position. I'm uncompromising. I genuinely believe that every sensible public administrator must be equally uncompromising on this issue.

[00:05:26]I don't think you can say no no no I cannot do any minimal damage also to environment if there's a mineral wealth or something else then that means we cannot administer.

[00:05:37]But again if you feel differently it's entire lefty.

[00:05:41]>> Yeah I have my own take here. See we have to go for cost benefit analysis. Uh let us look at Uttarakhand. Uttarakhand we know so many hydroelectric power projects have been launched there. At what cost? Over the last few years, we have seen the result.

[00:06:01]Not only in Uttarakand, in many different parts of the world development came at the cost of at a huge cost and then also whose development that also we have to look at. So there are very strong both for and against views. So in my view again we must take a balanced approach.

[00:06:25]We should not feel very strongly that yes development or yes environment. We have to take a balanced approach everywhere after looking at it should be our uh view should be case specific. In this particular case should we go for development or environment in that particular case what should be our approach. So everywhere there are consequences. When the consequence is so severe that uh development uh may be counterproductive then we must take a view that is for the better good of the society living there. So that is again my view. I just